So long, farewell...

Well, it's been an interesting 3 months getting acquainted with the blogosphere. However, it has come to my attention that I have fulfilled the requirements of the blogging assignment for my Audience Research class, and don't have to do this anymore. My reaction? I've decided to go legit.

I got myself a typepad account: Adver-Whatever (That's http://adver-whatever.typepad.com/weblog/)

I'm expanding my topics of interests a bit from gaming-only to include interesting developments in the advertising and marketing worlds, and seeing how this whole blogging-because-I-like-it thing goes.

So... this will be my last post on this site, besides one last summary assignment whenever I get around to it. Hope to see everyone for my next big blogging adventure!

Because I think it's a neat idea...

I promised myself I wouldn't do it. I was absolutely going to take this week off and not do anything for the blog. It's Thanksgiving, for god's sake! But here I am. This has absolutely nothing to do with gaming, but I was so amazed by what it was able to do for Joseph Jaffe, that I really wanted to get involved this time.

On December 14, there is going to be a bumrush the charts event for the book Age of Conversation, written by hundreds of different bloggers, and with all the proceeds going to Variety, the children's charity. Go here for details, help out the cause, and be sure to buy the book here on December 14!

Too bad I'll be in Ithaca...

M16 is a video game marketing conference that has been going on for the last two years, and the dates for next year's conference in San Francisco have been released. The event, taking place April 8-9 is themed "Cracking the Code", and will feature "the value of combining marketing innovation, revenue-generating partnerships and creative strategy that gives careers, product launches and ROI that extra push." (quote).

Companies that will be there include Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, DirecTV, Future US, Microsoft, The Ant Farm, VOOM HD Net, Activision, 2K, ABC, THQ, Konami, Nokia, Lucas Arts, Disney, Eidos, IGN, Midway Games, GameTap, Nvidia, MTVN, and GamePlay. Over the acourse of the two days, there will be sessions on game launch strategies, research, multi-platform marketing, new technologies, inspiration, and advertising, media and marketing partnerships - not a bad topic list. There will also be awards handed out, including outstanding TV ads for both products and consoles, outstanding TV campaigns, outstanding theatrical ads, most innovated pre-sell program, best new property launch, best product packaging, outstanding marketing campaign, and a whole host of others ranging from the design to the game play.

Anyway, it may have been slightly off topic, but I thought the conference sounded like a great way to celebrate the achievements of interactive marketers and bring more attention to gaming in general. I won’t be able to make it to the conference, as I happen to be living on the opposite side of the country at the moment, but for anyone who might be able to get to SF, you can begin the registration process here. I will be on a blogging hiatus during the next week for Thanksgiving, so to anyone out there: have a have a happy Turkey Day!

ads.com?

Gamasutra informed me (and the rest of the world) yesterday that AOL has recently announced that it is going to relaunch its gaming site, games.com, in order to increase advertising revenue (flaw #1 - not to give something back to the community, but to increase ad sales - not a good sign). They've done some cool things to the site, such as making navigation easier, and planning for 400 online and downloadable games and 20 online exclusive games by the end of the year. They are also trying to widen their demographic by targeting gamers of all ages, while their other gaming site, games.aol.com, will still be tailored to adult gamers.

However, the biggest change to the site seems to be their plan to whack their players over the heads with advertising every chance they get. This rather interesting strategy promises advertisers "deep in-game integration" by placing logos on the backs of cards in Solitaire, or on t-shirts being worn by the character calling out numbers in Bingo. Well, that much is all well and good - I am likely to notice the logos and make note of the fact that those companies were nice enough to sponsor my free game, and it doesn't interrupt my game play - everyone wins. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. AOL also had the wonderful and incredibly unique idea (note the sarcasm) of including pre-roll ads and interstitials within the games.

Now, I'm an advertising student. I will go out of my way to look for ads online. I will flip through TV stations just to watch commercials. In other words, I'm a freak of nature. But if I'm playing a game, that's me time. In that time, I don't want to be harassed by commercials not just at the beginning of my game, but actually interrupting my game in the middle to tell me something I don't care about. I would imagine that people who are less enthusiastic about advertising as a whole would be even more upset by this idea than I am. I'm not sure that even "the best selection of online and downloadable game content on the Web" would be enough for some people to put up with all of that.

Back to Second Life

A while back, I had my first adventure with Second Life, and basically just gave Crayon a hard time for their island being deserted at the time that I was wondering around. Today, I had my second adventure in-world, and the Crayonville island was anything but deserted. At one o'clock this afternoon, the winner of the Coca-Cola Virtual Thirst competition, in which contestants created the Second Life 'essence' of Coke, was revealed.

crowd of people:


So I show up to Crayonville, get transported to an amphitheater on the other side of the island, take up five minutes just trying to figure out how to make my avatar sit down (I never did finish orientation island), and watch the proceedings. By about 10 after, there was quite a crowd in the amphitheater, and I'm watching all these conversations pop up in the corner of my screen, though I have absolutely no idea how to talk back. I really wish I had a better idea of how SL actually works, because it also took me quite a while to realize that there was an audio feed that I had to turn on to go along with what I was seeing.

In the beginning were several people standing at the front of the amphitheater, one of which was the woman who created the winning entry, all standing in front of a very large box.



When the box finally opened, it revealed a large, nicely designed, bottle of coke, apparantly a new kind of "vending machine of the future", which would dispense a unique Coke experience.



The bottle itself turned out to be a puzzle that the designer was solving in order to dispense this Coke experience. However, I guess there were some technical difficulties due to the large number of people in the room causing a lag, so it took a while to solve. When it was finally all put together, out of the bottle came some very pretty bubbles and a giant snow globe photo booth, complete with penguins, ice fishing, and bottles of coke.



15 of These vending machines will be placed around SL for other people to solve the puzzle. There are three different types of puzzles, and those who can solve them will receive prizes. Everyone seemed to be very excited about the whole thing, and even though I am completely incompetent when it comes to SL, I agree that it's a pretty neat way for people to interact with the brand in a whole new way. I especially like this promotion because it actually ads something to the game, instead of taking people out of the game - as was mentioned in the presentation. Over all, this was pretty neat, and an exciting sign of things to come.

Guitar Hero: guitars, groupies, and... Axe?

So, in my last post, I went on a slight rant about how, despite all the forecasts of huge amounts of advertising going toward video games, I still hadn’t seen any evidence of it actually happening. Well, here comes some of that evidence now. Recently released Guitar Hero III features a rather wide variety of real-life brands, which the company hopes will bring more realism to the game.

Many of these brands make perfect sense to have in the game, and do add to the over-all feeling of realism. The musical brands present include Gibson, Guitar Center Audio-Technica, Crate, Ernie Ball, Krank, Line 6, Mackie and Zildjian, as well as music publications Alternative Press, Decibel, Guitar Player, Kerrang and Paste. However, there are several brands represented in the game that seem not to belong. These include Axe Body Spray and Pontiac, which appear in the form of sponsored venues, guitars, and go-go dancers. On the one hand, it's true that real-life venues have sponsor logos everywhere you look, so the "realism" argument has some legitimacy, but on the other hand, it's a video game that people pay rather a lot of money to play which is now shoving irrelevant ads down their throats.

I'll say one thing for the ads in this game - people noticed them. At least that one aim of all advertising was achieved through this effort. What Axe and Pontiac did not achieve, however, is brand support. Game reviewer Alex Navarro of Gamespot said that it was "disappointing that Activision has finally decided to corporate up the Guitar Hero experience with a fair amount of lame product placement and dynamic in-game advertising." He later described the whole advertising experience in the game as simply "gross." One extremely miffed fan went as far as to want some of his money back for the overload of advertising he was forced to swallow in the middle of his game. In 10 comments replying to his post, other Guitar Hero lovers expressed their mutual disappointment in the prevalence of advertising that did not seem relevant to the game.

It is important to note that not a single person seemed to have a problem with the musical brands that were in the game. They all seemed to agree that this added to the realism of the game, and that it was fair for them to be there. It was the brands that have nothing to do with music that really seemed to bother people, and even take them out of the game. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - in-game advertising is a great way to get people to interact with your brand; but it has to make sense in the context of the game. Sponsored venues may have seemed like a realistic way to go about it, but it obviously stood out enough to bother the gamers. I am all for the continuation of in-game advertising as a way to break through the clutter present in other media, but if this is a sign of things to come, maybe I should worry.